Text Size

-

+

reset

“Early states are set up for retail politics at its finest and that’s what the senator’s doing right now,” a Santorum spokesman said. He said that the Granite State’s voters are still “kicking the tires” when it comes to presidential candidates and that it is still very much an open race.

Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann returned to the state, where she pledged to spend more time as her campaign tries to regain traction. At a town hall at New England College in Hennicker, N.H., she avoided the social conservative message she hammered last week in Iowa and at the weekend Values Voters Summit in Washington.

While she didn’t say a word about abortion at the morning stop, Bachmann struck a libertarian tone, railing against government bailouts of Wall Street and the automobile industry, and the 2009 stimulus.

“I opposed my president, George Bush, on the $700 billion Wall Street bailout,” Bachmann said. “I opposed the treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, behind closed doors. I’m the one who went to the microphone and went through the entire litany of everything the Bush administration had done to bail out Wall Street. … I did everything I could behind closed doors and behind the scenes, with Democrats and Republicans, to make sure that vote failed.”

She added, “That $700 million bailout led to the automobile bailout, which led to the failed stimulus. … All of the young people here have to pay for this failure.”

Tuesday’s debate, focused on the economy, is sponsored by Bloomberg, The Washington Post and WBIN-TV. It is the first since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin both announced that they would not join the GOP field.

Eight candidates will participate in the debate: Romney, Santorum, Huntsman and Bachmann, along with Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Herman Cain and Rick Perry.

With seating order for Tuesday’s debate determined by who’s leading in the polls, Cain and Romney will be in center stage. Perry, whose numbers have dropped, will now be one spot to the left.

Readers' Comments (6)

I understand this has been articulated previously, but Republicans need to recognize very quickly that Huntsman has the most realistic chance of winning over the huge swath of independent voters who are disenchanted with Obama. Getting these independent voters on board is necessary to win in 2012. Simply pandering to the hardcore conservative base will not be enough. Think McCain in 2008. Huntsman has broad-based appeal that all of the other Republican candidates lack. He's conservative enough on many core issues so that, at the end of the day, hardcore conservatives will come out in droves to vote for him in 2012.

Yes, Perry, Romney, Cain, Paul, Bachmann, etc., can all, to some extent, "charge up" the conservative base. Okay, so what? Congratulations, they'll maybe win 20% of the popular vote in 2012. That doesn't guarantee you a win in 2012, and, ironically, such pandering to hardcore conservatives will turn off the independents. What's been particularly disturbing and laughable recently is that the Republican candidates (other than Huntsman) seem to spend roughly 50% of their time on the campaign trail either (i) meeting with bigoted pastors (Perry), (ii) making idiotic statements like African-Americans vote for Democrats because blacks have been "brain-washed" (Cain), (iii) asserting historical fallacies like the Battle of Lexington was actually fought in New Hampshire before a group of Tea Party constituents (Bachmann), (iv) stating that China is our enemy (Romney), or (v) stating that the Federal Reserve should be abolished (Paul). Sadly, these candidates waste the other 50% of their time defending (or attempting to distance themselves from) these destructive and idiotic affiliations and statements. What a waste.

This nonsense completely alienates independent voters, many of whom are searching for a reasonable alternative to Obama. It also undermines the entire credibility of the Republican Party. Enter Huntsman. Just listen to the guy. He doesn't waste his time with all of this other nonsense. He's intelligent, articulate, credible, and genuine. He has superior foreign policy credentials, legitimate business experience, effective governance experience in Utah, and he's fluent in Mandarin to boot. Wow. In this globalized, fast-changing 21st Century, Republicans need (and deserve) a modern, global-minded nominee like Jon Huntsman. These other characters are seriously wasting everyone's time. None of them will win in 2012. Wake up, fellow Republicans!